Harry Potter and the Silver Angel
by FPB
Summary: A superheroine turns up in Hogwarts. What does she want there? And why does Professor McGonagall speak of fallen angels?


HARRY POTTER AND THE SILVER ANGEL  
By F.P.Barbieri  
  
It looked as if the long-simmering hate between Harry Potter and his friends, and Draco Malfoy and his friends, would come to a head that morning. It was a bright Spring day: the sun shone on the tall and spindly towers and the strangely piled-up battlements of Hogwarts, and the giant squid flopped lazily in the pond: but neither of the two groups of fourteen- year-old magicians had much time for their enchantment, both natural and supernatural, just now. Draco Malfoy, a supercilious, white-skinned young warlock who liked to feel better than most people (and, in most people's opinion, was not) had managed to slip the words "mud" and "blood" into the same sentence: and as these words, taken together, amounted to the deadliest insult possible - aimed at the one girl in the group, Harry's friend Hermione Granger - Harry and his friend Ron Weasley (a red-haired lad whom Malfoy hated, if possible, even more than Harry himself, since he committed the unforgivable sin of being a full-blooded wizard and yet not bigoted about it) had finally lost both their tempers at the same time. Normally, when one of them - usually Ron - exploded at some more than commonly outrageous remark by Malfoy, the other - usually Harry - could be relied upon to keep calm and avoid a full-scale fight: but today that point had been passed. All six young people had their wands out: and nothing seemed likelier than an explosion of sorcerous mayhem - the kind in which cabbages were apt to begin sprouting from people's mouths, and hair to be turned to sludge and drip down one's forehead and to the chin - when a small, calm alto voice came over all their sound and fury. "Excuse me, lads and lady, but could you point out Professor McGonagall to me?" It was strange that a quiet stranger's question such as this could have cut across so much angry sorcerous power about to be unleashed: but it happened. All six young heads turned - to look at a figure unusual even by Hogwarts standards. There stood a young woman dressed in an ankle-length silver-blue cape held to her chest by two golden lion-headed brooches. Beneath the cape, she wore a silver-white tunic with straight black borders, that reached to her thighs, and below that, black leggings that shimmered with something like and yet unlike sequins; all of beautiful shining silk worked with cloth of gold. She had long golden gloves split above the thumb, and her almost knee-high boots were red with a white stripe down the middle, and two little wings on the sides. Those wings, thought Harry, must be some sort of motif, since she wore two huge ones on the sides of her head, starting from the corner of her jaw but peaking far above her crown - held together by a band of gold at whose centre, in the middle of her forehead, was a large, oval green emerald. But for all that, the tips of her head-wings barely reached to Harry's height: for she was tiny - "no more than five foot nothing", Harry found himself thinking (as he sometimes still did) in Muggle measurements. He looked at her from above, an unusual experience with an adult woman. And she was beautiful, with a great head of long golden hair, a broad and unlined forehead, large expressive blue eyes under fair eyebrows, high cheekbones, a straight nose and fine mouth and chin with a cleft in it. "Professor McGonagall. Or Professor Dumbledore, maybe, but I would rather not go directly to the head: it would be undiplomatic." Hermione was the first to recover her poise. "I don't see either of them, miss..." "Silver Angel. That is my name. You are...?" Introductions were quickly made, though Harry wondered whether the young woman noticed how carefully apart the two groups held from each other. It was, in fact, a most uncomfortable situation, in which two sets of people who would have liked nothing better than to enchant each other black and blue were having to be nice to a totally unknown stranger, who seemed to have business with the two most important figures in their school. Professor McGonagall was the Deputy Headmistress, a stern and formidable witch with a tremendous knowledge of magic (she was one of maybe half-a- dozen living wizards who could turn into animals) and the ability to reduce the most unruly boy to order with a few words and a stern glance, without even the need for magic. Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster, was on the surface a more pleasant and approachable person, with a frequent twinkle hovering somewhere behind his dense silver hair and moustache: but he was widely known as the greatest living wizard, and even the most foolish student did not dare give him any cheek. Neither Harry nor Malfoy were going to start trouble in the presence of someone who was going to meet either of them. The conversation proceeded, mainly on uncontroversial topics such as the origin and work of the school, of which the stranger did not seem well informed. Of course, there was little agreement: when Malfoy referred to Salazar Slytherin as the greatest of the school's four founders, Harry did not neglect to point out that he had been all but driven out by the other three, for being hostile - even murderously hostile - to non-magical mortals. At which point Malfoy managed to convey, without saying a word, that being hostile to Muggles was rather a good point than otherwise. But something else was going on. Gregory Goyle, one of Malfoy's two friends, was clearly smitten by the Silver Angel's delicate good looks: and began trying harder and harder to get her attention - which, as he was neither intelligent nor amusing, was a somewhat desperate attempt. The Angel was listening carefully, with few comments, to a curious four-handed account of Hogwarts, Hogwarts' history, and wizardly life in general, in which Malfoy constantly tried to undercut Ron and Harry, while Hermione almost spluttered with impatience at them all for their various mistakes and distortions (since she had probably read more book than the three of them together, and was rather too keen to show it). After a few minutes, Harry became aware of something growing strange and tense in the air; and he realised with a shock that Goyle was becoming offensive. Caught up in his verbal duels with Malfoy, he had paid his bristle-haired, gorilla-armed cohort no more mind than anyone else in the group; but now he realised that Goyle's clumsy attempts at display, more and more frustrated by the Angel's lack of interest, were giving way to resentment. Even Malfoy was alarmed. Goyle was making the kind of heavily sarcastic remarks - about the Angel's ignorance of wizard history, about her lack of inches, about her ridiculous clothes - that would ordinarily amuse his leader; but Malfoy was not so completely lost to common sense as not to realise that his subordinate was pointlessly provoking an unknown stranger. Goyle himself, consumed by anger at being ignored, was driven by a kind of frustration that neither Malfoy, nor Harry, nor indeed himself, were old enough to understand. He wanted this graceful young woman to be impressed by him: and was furious that nothing, but nothing that he could do would wake her. Malfoy tried to calm him down; and, for the first time in his life (and, for a long time, the last), Goyle ignored a direct order from Malfoy. He wanted to take this aloof, superior beauty down: and the thing he seized on were her high head-wings. "What are they for - making you taller? 'Cause they're doing a pretty poor job, I can tell you that." "Do you have a problem with them?" "Them? I want to see how tall you are without them, that's all." While Harry, Ron and Hermione looked on in blank amazement, Malfoy, horrified, tried to physically get between Goyle and his prey; only to be stopped by a gesture from the Angel. "Your friend", she said, "does not like my wings. If he wants, he can remove them." Harry, Ron, Hermione, even Malfoy and his other follower Crabbe, all somehow knew what was to happen, even before it happened. One of Goyle's paws - the same, noticed Ron, that had once been bitten by a so-called rat called Scabbers, and still bore his teethmarks - closed on the Angel's winged head-piece. leaving the impression that it could engulf her entire head; and he gave a jerk. The headpiece did not budge. Goyle pulled again - and screamed, as the Angel shook her head a bit, and the wing physically lifted him from the ground by his still-clutched fist, to be thrown above her, somersault clumsily, and fall on his back with a great thud, and lie there completely winded. The Angel turned to him; and suddenly she was holding an enormous club, bigger than a mountain troll's, nearly as tall as herself, and all of gold. It left the impression that just moving it would break her slender wrist; but she handled it with unnatural ease. Here Malfoy surprised Harry. He stood again between the Angel and Goyle; and though his face now looked more like parchment than ivory, his voice was not only steady but silky. He had learned these fine manners from his father - the brilliant, wicked Lucius Malfoy - and that hard-to-please master would not have found anything to criticise about the way his unpromising heir was acting. "Madam, my friend acted foolishly, I admit that. I apologise for him. But he has been punished enough, don't you think? You have given him a thumping he won't forget... get up, Goyle." Harry and Hermione both shivered. This was a Draco Malfoy they hadn't seen before, and, somehow, this new, smooth edition, bothered them a lot more even than the clumsy provoker they were familiar with. This diplomat promised nothing good for their future. One day, they thought, he might lie and circumvent even - what? Goyle got up as if his back hurt him; he kept quiet while a few conventional apologies were exchanged; but the Angel's great club did not vanish again, and she remained visibly on her guard. Only then did a harassed-looking Professor McGonagall make her appearance. "You are the Silver Angel?" "Yes, and you must be the Deputy Headmistress. A pleasure to meet you, Professor." "Have you had any trouble?" asked the Professor, looking in some concern to the Angel's club. "Nothing of importance, ma'am; a small but irritating reminder. With your permission, I will keep the lotus club, unless school regulations forbid it... It is well that anything that does not love us should know that the Silver Angel is alert and armed." "Of course, of course." And though Draco Malfoy had done nothing, though he had only tried to keep the peace, Ron, Hermione and Harry were pleased to see that the eyes of both women searched Draco out and stayed on him.  
  
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"Do come, Angel. Professor Dumbledore is expecting you." Professor McGonagall, Harry noted, had her broom with her. She mounted it, and flew off. But the Angel, it seemed, needed no broom: she raised her arms above her head, closed her legs together, and simply rose into the air - more like a rocket than like a bird, though with no noise or fire, and with her great cape billowing around her like a pair of wings. Draco Malfoy and his friends, he realised, were no longer there; but he noticed a familiar bulk, sitting at some distance as though a wall had suddenly been planted in the middle of the playing fields. Rubeus Hagrid, the school's gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures master, was rather hard to disguise; the more remarkable, then, that not one of the youths had realised his vast mass was close by, until the whole crisis had blown over. Hagrid must have been there for a bit, for he was shaking with laughter. "Bet yeh didn't know he had it in him, did yeh?", he managed between bursts; "bet yeh didn't know Goyle could do such a lovely flight... didn't know it meself... full of surprises, that lad..." And suddenly Harry, Ron and Hermione awoke to the absurdity of the whole scene. Soon they were all practically helpless with laughter, and for a few minutes could think of nothing else but Goyle's lovely Angel-flight, and his future in the acrobatics business. Harry realised that he had been so tense before the Silver Angel, that he had even forgotten to laugh at Goyle's discomfiture. He had unconsciously treated the tiny figure as he would a loose dragon, or the waters of the ocean. He caught Hagrid looking at him. "Yeah, they ain't to be taken lightly, yeh know..." "Hagrid" broke in Hermione, "what is she? She is no kind of witch I ever read of..." "That's 'cause she's no witch. Don't yeh read yer comic books - Muggle ones, at least? She's a superhero, she is; a right little Clark Kent in tights." "A superhero? But... I mean, even if they exist, aren't they mostly wizards and witches anyway?" "Not she. She's from another world, and she don't even much like magic. It's all brute strength with her" (and Harry thought of that immense metal club); "yeh know? If Goyle couldn't move her headdress, it was because he wasn't strong enough."  
  
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"Ah, Potter? Professor Dumbledore thinks you should come along, as the discussion concerns you in some ways", said Professor McGonagall, who had, somewhat disturbingly, appeared again among the four. "Me, Professor?" Harry did a quick exam of conscience, to see if he had been involved in some more than usually heinous breach of rules of late. "Your friends can come too, if they wish... the Headmaster did not say that, but as they are always so caught up in your little ventures, I dare say he will admit them too." "To see the Silver Angel?", said Ron. "The Angel, and her queen. You should feel honoured. It is not often that the race of the fallen angels takes an interest in one's doings." "A fa--? But she looked so lovely... And Hagrid said..." "She's on the right side, if that is your problem, Miss Granger. There is nothing to fear about her, except sheer power." This last communications had been given in an urgent whisper, as their brooms carried them up to the windows of the Headmaster's office. They dismounted and entered, all the three students trying to look dignified, respectful and a credit to their school; the Angel and Professor Dumbledore both stifled a smile at the sight. Of all the magical rooms in Hogwarts, Harry loved this one best. Large and airy, yet full of pleasantly hidden corners, it seemed to go with the warmth and learning of its occupier, of whom Harry (after a certain incident with a hippogriff) shrewdly suspected that he could even read the future to some extent. Strange little bubbles and wisps of delicately coloured smoke were apt to come at you from the most unexpected corners, and tickle you under the chin, or make you feel as if you had bitten into ice-cream. But this time, the room wore a ceremonial air, as if ambassadors were being shown in; purple carpets hung from the walls like banners, and bunches of flowers blossomed at regular intervals. And when Harry looked at the table behind the Silver Angel (whose club leaned against one of Professor Dumbledore's bookcases, and had, it seemed, pushed it some way out of alignment with its weight), he understood. Or rather, he half-understood, half-guessed; for, like the Silver Angel herself, this was something he had never seen at Hogwarts before. On the surface of it, it was only another owl, with bright piercing blue eyes; uncommon, perhaps, but hardly unexpected in a school whose mails were all handled by the birds (save perhaps for the high and mysterious messages that some of the more advanced teachers could send by methods unknown even to the hard-working Hermione). But... surely... this one was something else. For though Harry knew that it was an owl he was looking at, he had the strangest feeling that he was in the presence of a colossal, tall woman with flashing grey eyes, all dressed in iron, with a helmet whose high horse-hair crests - many, not just one - flashed with purple and gold. "Imperial majesty", said Dumbledore with more of an air than Harry had ever seen him give himself, "this is the boy who lived - Harry Potter. Harry, may I introduce you to Her Imperial Majesty, anass'Athana sophe, Queen Athena the Wise." Harry was unable to think of anything fit to say to a goddess, and stuttered shame-facedly to a halt, while the bright grey eyes twinkled almost like Dumbledore's own. "And these are his friends, who will always be around whenever he finds trouble. The lad is Ronald Weasley, of a family whose worth is far higher than the clothes they can afford; and the lady is Hermione Granger, who sometimes leaves me with a doubt, Imperial Majesty, that you have been instructing her yourself in secret." Ron blushed bright scarlet, nearly as red as his hair, and bowed without a word; Hermione managed a very messy version of a curtsy - the clumsiest thing, thought Harry, he had ever seen her do. It heartened him to realise that even the all-knowing Hermione did not know what to say to Athena. "My lord Dumbledore, I could hardly train her in magic as well as you can. But these young people all delight me, if I am allowed to say so. I can see why a Dark Lord would find them in the way." "Exactly. And as we are speaking about help..." "You understand, my lord, I can promise nothing. Defending Olympus is a hard enough task, for me and for my faithful little warrior. If and when your enemy will strike, I cannot guarantee that any of us will be available to do anything - except perhaps avenge the fallen if you lose, or congratulate the victors otherwise." "That is quite understood. We ask for no help against Lord Voldemort; we are fully prepared to face him on our own." (Everyone in the room shivered, except for Dumbledore, Harry, the Angel, and the owl who was Athena.) "Quite. But if we are able to bring any timely help at all, we will." Harry understood everything. For reasons that escaped him, he was the chief target of the monster Voldemort, who had murdered his parents and laughed; but who then, incredibly, had not managed to kill Harry, a baby of one, and had broken himself on that effort, ragged and torn like a whaler on a reef. Since then, the only times when that terror of the sorcerous world had been heard of had been two terrifying schemes to destroy Harry and regain his power; schemes which, thanks in no small part to Dumbledore's vigilance, had come to nothing. The thought of Athena's help filled him with delight, which he tried to stifle; after all, as the Queen had told Dumbledore, it was more than likely that she would be unable to move in time. "There is another matter, your Majesty. What shall we give you for payment?" "No payment, my Lord. No payment. Wherever we find evil, we want to destroy it" - and the Silver Angel nodded her golden head vigorously. "Your Majesty, we cannot -" "My Lord", broke in the Silver Angel "if my Empress or I or any of our fellows met this man Voldemort on the high road, and knew what he was, we would use all our powers to crush him for no reward. We hate the kind of thing he is." "Yes", said the owl who was Athena; and Harry was surprised to seem to see - on the iron-bound face he could not see - a look of great pain; "and if we failed, we would just die. But we cannot live with evil; not with genuine spiritual evil." Dumbledore made a sweeping bow. "That is like your nobilities, my Ladies. But in the realm of magic, we have rules. What is given must be paid for. If you take on yourselves to fight our enemy, we must give something of ours in exchange for what we receive from you. If we did not, magic would fail." There was a moment of silence, and it was clear to everyone that Athena was thinking. Then she nodded, and they could all see the crests of her helmet swaying in the currents of an invisible wind. "Well, then, your Majesty accepts. What does she want?" "What, indeed?" - and Harry was startled to "see" that Athena wore a merry, almost impish smile; "What does Athana sophe want? Wisdom... knowledge... you know it, my Lord. Let us agree on this: that if ever we have occasion to do anything you deem to be to your advantage (you see how nicely and legally I am phrasing this!), you will impart to me as much of your learning as you think fit payment. I leave it all to you." "That is good, Ma'am; it will be paid in full. But your ladyship?" - he said to the Silver Angel. "My Lord, I have all I need. I labour for Athena's profit. Give her any reward I may earn." And Harry was not the only one in the room to be startled.  
  
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The Silver Angel was gone, flying off in her weird manner with her legs close together and her arms over her head; and the owl who was Athena had simply vanished - the only thing about this strange afternoon that had not startled Harry, though it should not have been possible to apparate and disapparate within the bounds of Hogwarts. Harry and his friends sat, somewhat drained by the experience; only the irrepressible Hermione still had the strength to question the Headmaster. "Sir, Hagrid told us the Silver Angel was a superheroine, and Professor McGonagall that she was a fallen angel..." "Professor McGonagall said that she was of the race of the fallen angels, I should think. Didn't she?" "Y-yes, my Lord... I mean..." "Yes, Hermione. Don't worry. Those were court manners, not needed now. There is one way to speak among kings, one way to speak among equals... and one way, if I may say so, to speak with one's Headmaster." "Yes, Sir" "Well, then. Not all Angels fell as far as the lowest depths. Some saw where they were going, and resisted; yet could not be reclaimed completely, because they had blackened their wings. And some hated what their fellows were doing, and pursued them with flaming swords - and so fell themselves, for they had hated evil more than they had loved the light. "But Athena and the Silver Angel are of later generations. They were born to angels already fallen. There even is some human blood.... "You see, Hermione, Harry, Ron; Hagrid was also right. That is exactly what superheroes are. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth, that daughters were born unto them. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the Earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. The sons of God are the fallen angels." "But then", Harry broke in, "those great heroes all come out of evil?" "It is difficult to say, Harry, and perhaps you are too young to understand. It is possible to hate evil and not be in the light; and it is possible to be only partially in the light, and so weighed down with darkness that you cannot rise more than half-way. All of us, perhaps, are to some extent in that condition. But if you once give way to evil, then the only way is down; for evil has a weight of its own." "Is that what happened to you-know-who?" said Ron, his eyes enormous and his face very pale, contemplating enormous abysses in his mind. "Lord Voldemort, yes. Why do you think he called himself Death-flight? Vol-de-mort? Because he knew where he was going. Where choice is possible, it is possible to choose wrong; even to choose the worst possible evil, and some men and angels do. Tom Riddle did it, Adolf Hitler did it, Grindelwald did it... But at the end of that road there is the end of free choice; an end far more final than death. "For one season, for a month, a year, a century, they have power. They see in the dark places of other men's souls, and so they think and act faster and more efficiently than anyone with no understanding of human evil would. But with every step, you attune yourself more and more with the things you are making use of; you are less and less a man, and more and more a dead yet insatiable will, crying, as the poet says, sadly from hill to hill. "The end is annihilation. It is the soul sucked in on itself, worse even than the Dementors' Kiss. There is still power... plenty of power... but the man is gone; exploded in on itself, reduced to a mere force that spins on its own axis, incapable of reaching outwards, incapable of living again. "Those are the forces that the worst of our kind exploit, Hermione. Present evil always leeches off dead past evil. The powers of wicked old wizards are summoned up, and those who in their lives were proud above the stars become mere elements in someone else's quest for power. You see, they cannot refuse... They are worse than dead. "Athena and the Silver Angel are individuals. They have the power of choice, and they can be compelled by events not to be present when we need them. But you see, children, if I summoned up the power of Grindelwald, for instance, he couldn't refuse. He has ceased to be an individual and become a mere pool of power, available to anyone else ambitious enough and merciless enough to be accessed. "Lord Voldemort can win. In the short run, he can defeat us all, kill or enslave us, turn Hogwarts into a heap of rubble, hunt down Muggles like cattle - for a time. But in the long run, his path is as self-destructive as the fall of a meteor. He will struggle against it; he will try to have it both ways; he will try to use evil and not be destroyed by it; but I can tell you that, a thousand years from now, all that will be left of him will be a pool of impotent power, ready for the next greedy will and the next rotten heart to exploit." And, in silence, Harry thought of how he had seen his enemy's face behind the unhappy man who had served him for a season; and how close, how very close, he had looked to being nothing, even now.  
  
THE END 


End file.
